THE owner of Emerald Equestrian Centre, formerly Jessbrook Equestrian Centre, has been awarded over €830,000 (plus interest) in damages against her former business partner, James Buckley, and his wife Paula.

Protracted legal proceedings between the parties concluded on Thursday when Mr Justice Liam Kennedy found substantively in favour of Caroline Teltsch, who had claimed the defendants befriended her and convinced her to invest in a number of business ventures, including the equestrian centre, before exploiting and defrauding her.

She claimed sums of money were loaned to the couple for a variety of reasons, including to refurbish and run the Kildare equestrian centre, buy cars, pay medical expenses, tax bills, electricity bills, the costs of other legal proceedings, a house deposit and flights to New York for the Buckleys’ wedding.

However, she said she “never received a penny back” from the couple.

Justice Kennedy made a number of orders including that the trust under which Buckley held Teltsch’s assets be disposed of, that three tracts of land in Buckley’s name be returned to Teltsch’s name and that a show jumper they jointly owned, BMH Big Time, be returned to her care and custody. The judgement detailed the fact that two tracts of Teltsch’s land were disposed of by Buckley and ordered that an account of all sales and rents and profits of those, and Teltsch’s other properties held in trust by Buckley, be provided.

“The First Defendant in particular (James Buckley) has abused the trust and confidence which the Plaintiff invested in him, using her property for his own benefit and without regard to her interests,” the ex tempore judgement states.

James and Paula Buckley are also ordered to pay damages totalling over €830,000 over monies owed for loans advanced by Teltsch between 2010 and 2018. This includes €377,135 ordered to be paid by the defendants jointly and €453,651 ordered to be paid by James Buckley alone.

The defendants, with an address at Hillview Stables, Ballymoon, Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, had denied all the allegations against them.

Due to their failure to comply with a court order to disclose certain materials and documents, Ms Teltsch’s lawyers, Anthony McBride SC, Francis McGagh BL and solicitor Donnacha Anhold, had the Buckleys’ defence and counterclaim struck out.

The Buckleys did not attend the hearing on Tuesday and no representations were made on their behalf.